Elisabeth Blanchet

"I have been documenting post-war prefabs in the UK for the last 12 years, mainly in a photojournalistic way. Going from prefabs to prefabs, estates to estates, knocking on doors, recording interviews, taking pictures, shooting films, drinking a lot of tea and eating loads of biscuits, I have now a huge archive of prefab life, social history and stories. I love prefabs and the sense of community their design, their layouts helped to create in the outskirts of towns or even sometimes in their centre. Supposed to last 10 to 15 years, they survived much longer and almost 70 years after they were erected in 1946, some people are still fighting to save them.

Recently, I have decided to look at my archive in a new way, to look more at the passing of time on these little houses, from “palaces for the people” to derelict and abandoned dwellings, from happiness to despair.

The result is this new series of multi-layered images of prefabs, showing nature taking over abandoned homes and curiously nature taking over life."

Prefabs, 2014

As well as exhibiting in Espy, Elisabeth has also been curating a prefab museum in a real prefab!
See footage of the opening day and the press release below. The exhibition is being held at 17 Meliot Road, London, SE6 1RY. Open Tuesday, Thursday 10-4.30 and Saturday 10-6, running until 1st April May 31st 2014, due to great success!

Have you, or your family or friends ever lived in a prefab? Photographer Elisabeth Blanchet, who is documenting London’s biggest prefab estate, is holding an exhibition of her photographs, films of residents’ interviews and memorabilia in a prefab in Catford’s Excalibur Estate. 

Thousands of prefab houses were built across bombed-out London after World War II to help alleviate the housing shortage for returning servicemen and their families. Since then, most of the capital’s estates have been knocked down and Excalibur is set to be bulldozed and replaced by modern housing  later this year.

Originally built by German and Italian prisoners of war in 1945 and 1946, six of the 186 bungalows have received Grade-II listing. The remainder of the estate will be demolished, except for its tin-roofed prefab church, St Mark’s, believed to be one of a kind.

Come and visit the estate before this unique slice of 20th-century social history disappears for good. You will learn about the fascination history of these tiny bungalow and meet some residents who have lived in the prefabs for a long time. The exhibition will also feature the work of other photographers and artists – Jo Cooper, Nick Davis, Nadège Druskowski, Cath Dupuis, Jane Hearn, Harriet Mcdougall, Rob Pickard, Alex Pink, Lizzy Rose, Keara Stewart, Lucia Tambini - who are fascinated by prefabs too.


See more from Elisabeth Blanchet